He was staring at me, and fear was the only thing I felt. Not for me, but for my family. My brother kept bleeding.
“Okay,” I said, nodding. “I’m yours. Whatever you want.”
“Kee,” my brother said, and my name on his lips almost made me come apart.
The marauder took a knee next to my brother, patting him on the shoulder. He handed him a glass of whiskey before he set a handkerchief against the wound, over my hand, helping me staunch it. I almost took it away, but I refused. I wasn’t going to let him rattle me. Or allow him to see it.
He thought he could steal my heart?
I met his green eyes and grinned.Game on, you marauding bastard.There was more than one word for vengeance, and getting even sounded just as sweet.
* * *
I wasn’tsure how it happened, but the worst day of my life had also become my best.
After Cash drove my brother to the ER, where we fed them some bullshit lie about a robbery gone wrong, and they took care of him, I received a call about a part on Broadway I’d been after. The name of the show wasThe Blood Queen, and it was based off of a script that felt eerily close to my own life.
That line about art imitating life had never felt so true.
I’d be playing the part of Joan McDougal, a Scottish maiden who refused to marry for the sake of family and obligation. She wanted to marry for love, if she ever married at all. She gave her parents a choice. She’d either marry for love, or she’d bleed her heart dry with an arrow before she settled for anything less. That way, if there was no other way, the man who made her a bride out of obligation would get a raisin instead of a heart.
Was it melodramatic?
Overtly, but my current state of mind was not being rational. I was being forced into marriage by a marauder who couldn’t care less about me.
I studied his face as he drove us home from the hospital. This man had a reason for each of his steps, and I knew I was nothing but a conquest that was going to move his journey along in some way. I still couldn’t piece it together, though.
I hated to sound like a broken fucking record, butwhy me?
Cash hiring my brother was no accident or coincidence. The cemetery. Showing up at the fair under the guise that he wanted to meet me.
This plan of his had been in play for a while, based on the timeline, but he had just decided to act on it. What had changed?
Why me?
WHY ME?
As he pulled up to Harrison’s car outside of his building, he said he wanted to speak to me alone. Harrison refused to get out of the car at first, but after I told him to go or I’d stick my finger in his wound again, he got out and waited by his car.
Cash sat there a second, gazing out of the windshield. “No one knows about this yet. I’ll let you know the time and place, but start packing up your things. Tell friends and family that Harrison fronted you the money for a better apartment. Tell your family about getting the part in the show. We’ll have a party at your brother’s new place for family and friends. Including the man who gave you that ring.”
“That ring?”
He nodded to my left hand.
Scott’s ring. I’d totally forgotten about Scott in all of this. The emerald heart was crusted with blood. How was I going to tell him?Hey, about our relationship? I’m ditching you for a criminal. You know, the guys you usually go after.Yeah, that wasn’t going to go over well. It might even start a war.
“Don’t tell him a thing yet.” When Cash said “thing,” it came out as “ting.” “Clear?”
“Whatever you want.” I smiled sweetly at him, but bile burned the back of my throat.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “I prefer your lash of a tongue. Sweet doesn’t suit you, darlin’.”
“Wait,” I said, just realizing something. So many things were coming at me at once. “How did you know about my part in the show?” I hadn’t even told Harrison. My good fortune and my shitty luck were at war with each other, each trying to vie for the biggest shock of my life.
“These are my streets. I know everythin’,”he said.“Just like I know Armino Scarpone won’tbe bothering you.”
“You got me the part! You had a hand in that, didn’t you?”
